The wind has been surging all around the eaves today. Gray paints the sky in the afternoon. It looks and sounds very March-like. I watch the tops of the trees swaying from my upstairs window. Baby wheat is beginning to think spring and waking up to green and grow.
Where are you finding beauty these days, comrade friends? What are you creating? Have you been anticipating? Who is encouraging you? What is showing up on your gratitude list? How are you finding delight?
Here are a few things I’m considering + inspiring finds to share with you……..
1. ANTICIPATE
Anticipating ~ my nieces are coming this week for an afternoon party. The invitations asked them to bring….
- a favorite doll
- giggles + grins
- an appetite
- 1 sheet of stickers
- energy for playing games
I doubt you need to ask six and eight-year-olds to bring energy, but it made for a fun item on the list! 🙂
We’re going to have a treasure hunt complete with clues to follow and gifts treasure at the end, of course! Tensies and Hello Kitty Uno are both on the list of games as well.
Do you have a favorite game for these ages?
We may try playing Rank with them too. We also recently discovered DOS and hope to snag this game at our Wal-Mart.
2. BEAUTY
The crocuses are poking up in the back yard and their yellow faces are so hopeful and bright.
I feel beauty when slipping my hand into my good farmer man’s. We’ve had several deaths in our community and one in our extended family recently. It’s been sad and hard, but it reminds me to see the beauty in life and calls me to hug my people and rehearse that we are not guaranteed threescore years and ten.
Beauty wafts down my staircase in guitar note form. It bursts from the piano and hums delightedly in my daughter’s voice as she sings “Sweet hour of prayer, That calls me from a world of care.”
3. CREATE
A friend shared this segment of a lecture with me.
A very good listen ~ Tim Keller on Stories and the impact they provide and the yearning our human hearts carry.
I loved the correlations he made.
Two current favorite IG accounts I follow ~
I appreciate the communities both accounts have created and the words they speak. Both press in to teaching and listening to learn.
Carlos Whittaker just started a podcast called Human Hope. His first guest was Sharon!
Hop over here to check it out and listen to their great conversation.
4. DELIGHT
This song has been hopeful and cheerful and delightful and I’ve loved listening to it recently.
5. ENCOURAGE
“I think many people believe the best way they can help others is to criticize them, to give them the benefit of their “wisdom.” I disagree. The best way to help people is to see the best in them.”
~ John Maxwell
6. FAITH
I found this article so real and thought-provoking.
Growing My Faith in the Face of Death by Tim Keller
{read full article by clicking link}
“The second discipline was something that earlier writers like Edwards called spiritual “soliloquy.” You see it in Psalms 42 and 103, where the psalmist says, “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” and “Bless the Lord, O my soul. And forget not all his benefits.” The authors are addressing neither God nor their readers but their own souls, their selves. They are not so much listening to their hearts as talking to them. They are interrogating them and reminding them about God. They are taking truths about God and pressing them down deep into their hearts until they catch fire there.
I had to look hard at my deepest trusts, my strongest loves and fears, and bring them into contact with God. Sometimes—not always, or even usually—this leads, as the poet George Herbert wrote, to “a kind of tune … softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss, exalted manna … heaven in the ordinary.” ~ Tim Keller
7. GRATITUDE
So grateful for……….
- cheesy garlic bread
- sunshine
- clean windows
- gray boots with pink laces
- pretty postage stamps
- friends and Voxer conversations
- Aeropress coffee making
- a new rainshower shower head
- red markers and gold gel pens
- a new wall display my handsome husband handyman hung for me
- offering fun giveaways
- a cleared-off island in the kitchen
Something I’m Learning……
Tapping the screen, I open the letter.
I begin to read words from @emilypfreeman as she shares 8 Things She’s Learned This Winter. I’ve read her seasonal reflections for, well, many seasons now.
I appreciate the practice Emily offers for soul space, reflection, questions, and connection.
Inside my cozy living room, #6 on her list names something for me. Something deep I’ve felt and have named a little bit. Her statement of words sums it up in the very best way. It resonates across the room and back in the glimmering lamplight.
So much so I can’t shake them nor do I want to.
I’ve been pondering them all day.
Twenty-four hours later, here I am pecking away at a keyboard because it feels like if they resonate so deeply with me, there’s a comrade out there who will also benefit from hearing them as well.
#6 ~ “I’m learning to trust my intuition.
Not at the expense of everything else and not intuition all by itself. But I’ve lived most of my life suspicious of myself and this has been a season of calling myself out on that, of paying attention to the knot in my stomach, and of moving toward what I know is right even though people around me might disagree.” ~ Emily P. Freeman
Yes.
Truly.
I named it like this in my last IG post in 2020.
Intuition + feelings coupled with wisdom + discernment matter more than many people will tell you.
Currently Reading….
- Worthy by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Eric Schumacher
- Thank You For Rejecting Me by Kait Warren
- Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess by Dr. Caroline Leaf
- The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King
- Think Again by Adam Grant
- Truthfilled study by Ruth Chou Simons
New books on my shelf I’m anticipating………
- Complement by Aaron and Jamie Ivey
- Freely and Lightly by Emily Lex
KID PICK
- Stay This Way Forever by Linsey Davis
I adore all three picture books by Linsey Davis. The illustrations are so fun and bright and the rhyming stories are captivating and teach great lessons.
I’d love to hear your lists! What you’re creating….where you see beauty…what has made you laugh with delight…books you’re reading…songs bringing you hope and joy…..
Have a delightful day!
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